Category Archives: Values

Last week I talked about the barriers that exist when it comes to living in the Spirit. One of those barriers is sometimes not knowing our values or not being clear about them. Here’s a metaphor I like to use to illustrate this point:

Let’s say I have a goal, I want to lose ten pounds. And maybe I really want to lose it, I have a wedding coming up or some summer shorts I want to fit into. But then you come into my office and bring me my favorite donut (substitute your favorite food!) Here’s the thing: the donut is guaranteed. It looks good, it smells good, I know it’s going to taste good. Plus it’s right here – immediate gratification! There’s only one reason I would ever refuse the donut in favor of my weight loss goal – and that is if my long term weight loss goal is so “tasty”, so available, so immediate that it’s like choosing between two available treats – and then I can choose the healthier option.

A lot of my work with clients involves clarifying their values. If you aren’t clear on what you’re moving toward, you’re going to take your eyes off your goals every time – in fact, it’s hard to even make and clarify goals if you don’t have a value system to base them on. So if, for instance, kindness isn’t a value that is clear and salient to you, you’re going to go for that pleasure that comes with lobbing a word grenade at someone in an argument – every time. Often when I ask a client “what are your values?” there’s a long pause and then they say something like “to be kind?” or “to love people?” That’s like asking an entrepreneur what his business vision is and having him say “um, to make money?” If you don’t have a very clear and significant vision of where you’re going, how would you ever hope to get there?

Sadly, in my experience I’ve found that we in the Church are no better at having defined values than anyone else – and we should, shouldn’t we? For an entire body of people whose lifestyle is based around the values laid down by the One we claim to follow – Jesus – we sure have a pretty vague sense of where we’re going sometimes. Paul said in his letter to the Philippians (3:13-14), “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (NIV) Paul knew that it’s better to go toward something than away from something.

If you find yourself constantly doing something you wish you wouldn’t do (like lying, watching porn or eating) – or not doing something you know you should do (working out, eating healthy), you might have a problem with vague values. You may be getting distracted by the immediate tug because what you really value is too far out of reach, too hypothetical. What you don’t want to do is readily available, and what you want to do is too much of a “Sunday sermon” and not enough of a daily reality.

What are your values? Were they given to you by your parents or your church, or are they yours? Can you taste them? Or do you take the donut every time?

PRACTICE: If you feel like you do not have very well defined values or a very clear “life vision”, take some time in a quiet place to imagine that it’s years from now, and you have passed away. Somehow, you have the opportunity to be present at your own funeral and hear the words your loved ones are speaking. If you have lived your ideal life, what are they saying? What kinds of examples are they giving of how you lived this out? If you spend enough time really visualizing this scenario, you will have a better idea about what your values really are, and how that would look right now, today.